Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 2).pdf/247

 During the seven months of the account Worcester's men bought twelve new plays. These were:

A Medicine for a Curst Wife (Dekker).

Albere Galles (Heywood and Smith).

Marshal Osric (Heywood and Smith).

The Three Brothers (Smith).

1 Lady Jane, or, The Overthrow of Rebels (Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, Smith, and Webster).

Christmas Comes but Once a Year (Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, and Webster).

1 The Black Dog of Newgate (Day, Hathaway, Smith, and another).

The Blind Eats Many a Fly (Heywood).

The Unfortunate General (Day, Hathaway, and Smith).

2 The Black Dog of Newgate (Day, Hathaway, Smith, and another).

A Woman Killed with Kindness (Heywood).

The Italian Tragedy (Smith).

As a rule the price was £6 a play; occasionally £1 or £2 more. Dekker had 10s. 'over & above his price of' ''A Medicine for a Curst Wife''. This had originally been begun for the Admiral's and was evidently transferred to Worcester's by arrangement. After buying 2 Black Dog of Newgate for £7, the company apparently did not like it, and paid £2 more for 'adycyones'. It is possible to verify from the purchase of properties the performance of nine of the twelve plays. These are Albere Galles (September), The Three Brothers (October), Marshal Osric (November), 1 Lady Jane (November), Christmas Comes but Once a Year (December), ''1 Black Dog of Newgate (January), The Unfortunate General'' (January), 2 Black Dog of Newgate (February), and ''A Woman Killed with Kindness'' (March). The production of this last may, however, have been interfered with by Elizabeth's death. Two plays of the series are extant, A Woman Killed with Kindness, printed in 1607 and described in 1617 as a Queen's play, and 1 Lady Jane, which may be reasonably identified with ''Sir Thomas Wyatt'', also printed in 1607 as a Queen's play, and by Dekker and Webster. Dr. Greg regards Mr. Fleay's identification of Albere Galles with Nobody and Somebody as 'reasonable'; but it appears to rest on little, except the fact that the latter was also printed as a Queen's play (S. R. 12 March 1606) and the conjecture that the title of the former might